A False Mirror - Charles Todd [140]
“Miss Esterley.”
“In God’s name, why her? She’s been a friend.”
“Then we must look at your wife. Felicity Hamilton.”
She smothered a little cry of disbelief.
“That’s enough, man, I won’t listen to any more of this!” Hamilton was angry, his face flushing with it. “If you can’t be sensible about this, then it’s over.”
Mallory had started to his feet, then sank back into his chair, remembering that, with her husband in the room, he had no right to be Felicity’s champion.
Putnam anxiously watched Rutledge.
He waited until the protest had subsided, and then said, “We haven’t found the weapon that was used to strike you down, Hamilton. But I want you to look at what I’m about to bring in.”
He went to the motorcar, lifted the rug from the rear seat, and carried it into the house with him.
When he held one end and let the rug unfurl, something hard and long went clattering across the floor to the hearth, nearly touching the toes of Felicity Hamilton’s shoes before it was stopped by the wood basket. She cried out, and the three men, already on their feet, crowded forward to see it better, though it was nearly five feet long and made of teak with worn brass tips.
Hamilton swayed on his feet, and Putnam put out an arm to steady him. Mallory was as pale as his shirt.
A boat hook, old, battered, very likely passed down for generations through a fisherman’s family, lay there in the fire’s red glow.
Not quite an African execution club, as Dr. Hester had suggested, but near enough to kill a man with one blow.
Rutledge said, “You told me last night, Mr. Hamilton, that you’d heard someone over by the boats. It’s in your statement. This is what he was looking for. He found it, and before you could hear him come up behind you, he brought you down with one swing. After that he was free to use it any way he liked. Or she. A woman could wield this hook as well. Now tell me, if you will, who else among your acquaintance is a cold-blooded murderer?”
Felicity asked, drawing her feet under her, away from the long, heavy length of wood, “Is—was this the one that was used?”
“I doubt we could prove it.”
“Whose boat did this one come from?” Putnam asked.
“It was drawn up on the shingle, much as it always seems to be. We can trace the boat, of course. But the boat hook was borrowed, dipped in seawater, to wash away any blood, and simply put back again. Ten minutes, at most, I should think. The owner never missed it.”
“I don’t see why I wasn’t killed,” Hamilton said in wonder. “I must have a harder head than he thought.”
“If you were dead, your lungs wouldn’t fill with seawater as you drowned. The battering from the rocks would have masked these injuries well enough, there wouldn’t be any question about what happened.”
Mallory interjected, “And if there was a question, I was the scapegoat.”
“I’m afraid so.” Rutledge bent down, retrieved the boat hook, and rolled it in the motorcar’s rug again, setting it outside the door. “Someone will be wanting this back.”
Hamilton said wistfully, “I wish you could explain away Mrs. Granville’s death as easily.”
“Not yet. But you didn’t kill her, you know. She wasn’t strangled.”
“Then why—? Damn it, I confessed to it!”
“Yes, I owe you an apology for that. It’s what I told you. But your willingness to take the blame was honorable.”
“What are you going to do now?” Mallory asked. “There’s still Bennett to deal with.”
“I want the four of you where I can keep an eye on you. Mr. Putnam, you’re needed here, if you’ll agree to stay. Mallory, you and Mrs. Hamilton will go on as before, if you please. And, in a change of plans, Mr. Hamilton no doubt would like his bed. I propose that he take to it at once and stay there while I report to the world at large that he’s been found, he’s still not fully coherent, and we expect a specialist to arrive shortly from London to tell us more about the head injury.”
He thought they were going to refuse. But Hamilton said, “I for one will do as I’m asked. I’ve not got the strength to argue. Am I to groan when Bennett comes? I